Veria Amiri is a multidisciplinary musician, scientist based in London and the founder of Sornai House of Music, where he teaches Tar and Setar.
Veria Amiri was born in Tehran in early 80s. Both his parents were educated in humanities and philosophy and were interested in natural sciences, art and music. He received his early education in science, literature and philosophy from his parents.
His Musical career began by studying music at six years of age under Maestro Jalal Zolfonun. Two years later the family moved to England, and he continued his music education in London. By age thirteen he was giving small performances at different events and venues in London. Continuing his music studies under various teachers, he studied the Setar under Turaj Hasanzadeh, maestro Keivan Saket and learned the radif Tradition on Setar under Jalal Zolfonun. Later on in London he studied Tar and the Persian Radif for Tar under Tinoush Bahrami, Siamak Nemat-Naser and Jamal Samavati.
His music studies continued under Sahba Motallebi and maestro Hossein Alizadeh, where his focus was to learn and analyse maestro Alizadeh’s full repertoire of compositions. He later began studying Ali Akbar Shahnazi’s Advanced Radif and repertoire under Behrouz Hemmati, also Saba and Hormozi’s repertoire under Maziar Kalantarian.
Over the years he has also developed elementary skills on instruments such as Tonbak, Tanbour and Turkish Baqlama.
Veria Amiri is a virtuoso on the Tar and Setar. He has played with many different ensembles and philharmonic orchestras in the UK, western Europe and Turkey. He has performed in many different venues such as the South Bank Centre, Cadogan Hall, Artsdepot London, Ismaili Centre, Brunei Gallery etc. He has received numerous awards from different societies and British Council’s Culture and Development centre. He has also been teaching Tar and Setar and holding workshops for Iranian music since 2004.
Over the years, he has taught many students, few of which become semi-professional and professional musicians.
He is also a mathematical physicist graduated from UCL in 2008 and spent another four years of research and teaching in the mathematics department of Royal Holloway University of London. He has been writing on issues such as quantum field theory and philosophy of science and interpretations of quantum physics for public understanding of science. He has also been teaching quantum physics since 2010.
In 2008 Veria Amiri and Payam Iran-Manesh initiated the Sornai house of Music (Sarang music school at first), as a music academy for Persian, Middle eastern and classical music education. During the years the school has grown into the only official educational centre for Iranian-Persian music in London.
Veria Amiri has been on many different TV shows and debates both as a musician and a physicist.
He is also working with different ensembles and orchestras (Light of Music orchestra, Sornai music ensemble, Dostan music ensemble and …) as a Tar and Setar player.
He has developed a unique method of education for Tar and Setar to non persian speaking students. It’s an English methodology for tar and setar which is under edit for publication.
He is currently working on philosophy of Science, philosophy of music and science and music education.